20. High Time

Riggs

In a rare moment of coincidental synchronization that, if Riggs had the headspace to give to it, he really should give it that headspace, he rolled up behind Nadia's Range Rover a little over a mile from his lane.

He found she went a studious six miles over the speed limit on a low traffic, rural road, which had him laughing his balls off.

Something that he also should have given headspace to, considering, after what went down with Bubbles, he'd been in no mood to laugh.

They slid in beside each other outside his house, and he tooted his horn.

He knew she got him instantly when she gave him a jaunty thumbs up, turned, grabbed some stuff, then jumped out of her car carrying a big, brown paper bag with handles, a little, white paper bag he knew held treats from Aromacobana, her purse over her shoulder, and a white paper coffee cup with drawing on it.

She opened the door and leaned in, ordering, "Here, take this."

He took her coffee and put it in the holder.

"And this," she went on.

He took the bakery bag and put it between the seats.

She tossed the other bag in the footwell, nabbed the hand hold, put her foot on the rim of the door, then heaved herself up.

And fell to her back foot.

She tried again.

And fell back.

A third time she remained suspended in air for a second.

And fell back.

"Jesus," he said through laughter. "I don't have a problem getting in."

"You're six inches taller than me," she snapped.

"Ledger doesn't either."

"Huh," she forced out, then gave it her all and landed in the seat. She turned to him. "There!" she cried triumphantly.

He grinned at her. "Well done, princess."

She slammed her door, grabbed the bag in the footwell, and demanded, "Look!"

She then pulled out some circular placemats that looked like crushed leather and were forest green.

"Aren't they perfect?" she asked.

"They actually are."

She shoved them back in the bag, noting, "You sound surprised."

He put the truck in reverse. "I didn't know they made placemats for people with dicks. And belt up."

She reached for her seatbelt and educated, "They make everything for everybody."

"Good to know," he muttered and headed down the lane.

"I didn't think we'd meet up like that, or I would have gotten you a coffee."

"I'm good, honey. But thanks."

"Though, I got treats for the road."

"Saw that."

"How's your friend?"

"Not my friend anymore."

For the second time that day, he was met with silence from her, and having her actually with him, he could feel how profound it was this time.

It was her turn to break it.

"What does that mean?" she asked softly.

"I'm thinking he's freaked about what happened to him. Definitely they got him on drugs for pain. But still, seems he's feeling some, and not just the kind that comes from the body. Even so, he let loose in the kind of way there's no coming back."

"Oh, Riggs," she said gently. "What did he say?"

"You don't want to know."

"Actually, if it's upsetting you, I do."

"Right then. He's pissed I ate more pussy in high school than he's had in his whole life. And it seems that's a thing for him, because he went on to share how he thought I spent my days, starting them eating more pussy and leaving a woman satisfied even if I didn't give her anything more than that. He made some comment about how much I make on my commissions, my contract work, that I'd then save a kid from drowning, and end the day banging another woman before I went to bed. He also referred to Angelica as a bitch."

"Are your commissions unusually pricey?" she asked cautiously.

"I get what people will pay me for them, and I don't aim low."

"So the answer to that is yes."

"I'll say, when the math is done, I make about five times an hour more working on a commission than I do working a job. And I don't bid low on jobs either."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"Definitely understanding why you own a lake."

"Honey," he warned low.

"I know. I'm sorry. I'm being flippant because, if I'm not, I'm going to get really, double, super, extra pissed off."

He glanced from the road to her. "What?"

"I don't know this person, but he sounds like his blood turned green somewhere along the way, and that green can be acid."

"That's about the gist of it," he concurred.

"So, honestly, Riggs, what the fuck?" she asked.

There was her saying fuck again.

"Nadia—"

"No, Riggs." Her voice was rising. "What the fuck?"

"Honey, calm down."

"I'm not going to calm down," she shot back. "You've been worried about this guy. He sells you a bad bottle of wine, the kind of bad you have to sleep on your couch with a gun next to you, and you go visit him, and he's mean to you?"

Mean?

All kinds of cute.

"He isn't worth it," he told her.

"Is he your friend?"

"He was. And I'm gonna tell you a story, and it's not gonna make me sound good, but it's going to explain that I should have been smart about Bubbles a long time ago."

"Okay," she said sharply, not worried about the story he was going to tell.

She was still pissed.

Oh yeah.

He had to find time to give the situation with Nadia some headspace.

"I met Bubbles in high school. He's an odd kind of guy. A ball of energy. Always moving. Not sure how he can be like that and still be pudgy, but he is, and that's not shade on people who carry weight. He's just got that much energy. He always had thin hair, and now he doesn't have much of it, and he wanted to be everyone's friend. So kids, being assholes, took advantage of that. He was bullied, but he didn't know it because he just wanted everyone to like him, so he took it. Though, maybe he did know it."

"I'm thinking, he did," she confirmed.

His mouth went up on one side, fortunately it was the side opposite her, just in case his humor might piss her off more, and he kept talking.

"That shit was shit. I intervened because I was feeling some of that, being twelve years old and a freshman in high school. Both of us in the same boat, we became friends. I learned pretty quickly that he'd do just about anything for anyone if they'd just like him, and it made him kind of a doofus, but also, bottom line, he'd do just about anything for anyone. And ‘anything' comes in a lot of varieties. When my dad died, he slept on my couch for two weeks, and he had a live-in girlfriend then. Not to mention, I didn't need moral support, but he did it anyway. When I found out Angelica was pregnant, he came over with a bottle of Jack, and we got drunk. That's one kind of Bubbles's anything."

"I'm not feeling like I want to kick him in the shin anymore, that is, when he's up and walking again."

"Right," Riggs murmured, tamping down his humor so he could get into his next.

Because it was going to be a lot harder.

"Other shit he did was just stupid. He got himself in a situation where he owed a favor to someone who wanted him to do something, and this someone was really not cool, so even though what he wanted Bubs to do seemed innocuous, it probably wasn't. But Bubs had to get out from under this guy. Bubbles was freaked. I was freaked for him. And he asked me to go with him. He was making a delivery, and we were right, it wasn't innocuous. The situation was dangerous, and it could have gone really fucking bad. Fortunately, they wanted what we were delivering more than they gave any fucks about us, so we laid it on them and got the fuck out of there. I don't know what it was. It could have been ransom or drugs or illegal firearms. I just know it wasn't Girl Scout cookies. It felt dirty, and it was the only time I felt like I was inching closer to being like my dad."

"Riggs," she whispered.

She got that feeling all right.

"Bubbles knew what that would do to me, so I know he didn't stop doing stupid shit for and with bad people, he just never dragged me into it again."

"Until the wine."

"Of a sort," he allowed. "But he felt he owed me a marker, and in his head, that's part of how he paid me back."

"He did owe you a marker, but selling you that wine was no payback."

More training from her dedulya, no doubt.

"I didn't hold a marker, honey, and I told him that a million times. But Bubs didn't get it. He didn't get friends have each other's backs. I should have seen that, but I didn't. Until today."

"Just to say, now I want to kick him in the shin again because he used your friendship to drag you into doing something that made you feel dirty."

"It was my choice."

"You were looking out for a friend."

"It was still my choice."

"We're just going to have to agree to disagree, Riggs, because bottom line, you're right. It was your choice. But we do things for people we care about. Especially if you're a good person. And he played on that. I don't know how much of a doofus he is. On the one hand, he sold you a bottle of wine that got him a stay in a hospital, and that's pretty damned stupid. On the other, he played the only thing he could play when he was dealing with a highly intelligent man, his emotions and the feelings he felt for him. Which is pretty ingenious, and downright nasty. So, fuck Bubbles whoever-he-is."

Totally needed to give Nadia some serious headspace.

"Warning, the Russian is coming out in you, princess," he teased.

"Warning right back, Riggs, it's always close to the surface."

"No shit? It got in my face this morning about the gun."

"I've never been to Russia," she announced. "My grandfather used to spit after he said the word. Mom told me great-granddad would do the same. But she said he missed it even so. The pain was like a toothache he had every day of his life. I think that kind of love flows through bloodlines."

"I know his story, just so you know."

"It isn't a secret. It's actually famous."

"Yeah. And if I had to leave the country I love in order to be free to be me, I would feel the same."

"Agreed."

"What does dedulya mean? Grandpa?"

"It's kind of an endearment for grandpa. Dedushka is grandfather. Mom called her grandfather deda. He was still alive when I was born, though I don't remember but snatches of him. To distinguish the two, I was taught dedulya."

"Right."

"How far is this place where we're going?"

"About forty-five minutes."

"We should stop and get you coffee," she said as she reached for hers.

"Like I said, I'm good."

"Okay."

He drove for a while.

When she put the coffee back in the holder, he called, "Nadia?"

"Mm?"

"Thanks for being pissed on my behalf."

"You're welcome," she said softly.

He reached out and squeezed her knee.

Instead of leaving it there, like he wanted, he put his hand back to the wheel.

Absolutely.

It was time to find the headspace to figure out where he was with Nadia, and then set about discovering where she was.

It was time days ago.

So it was high time now.

Forty-five minutes later,he stood back and witnessed a mother and child reunion.

That being a big, blue cane corso loping right to Nadia, who had crouched to make herself less threatening without Hutch telling her to do so, and the dog slobbering all over Nadia's face after barely a sniff.

Whereupon Nadia threw her arms around the terrifying-looking animal's neck and cried out a joyful, "Puppy!"

"Jesus Christ," Hutch muttered, standing at his side. "I've never seen anything like that. And I been doing this awhile."

Hutch was a former SEAL who'd been breeding and training police and guard dogs for at least seven years.

"She's Russian by heritage," Riggs told him.

"That explains it," Hutch replied.

Nadia turned to Hutch and called, "What's her name?"

"Gia," Hutch called back.

She returned to Gia and cooed, "Oh my God. Gia. Who's a darling girl? Who's a pretty girl? Who's the prettiest girl in the world? Gia is!" while the ninety pounds of packed muscle that made up Gia pranced around her like she was, well…fuck.

A puppy.

"She's gonna undo six months of training in two minutes." Hutch was back to muttering.

"Welcome to my world," Riggs muttered in return.

But in his case, he reckoned, it was more like thirty-eight years.